Sixteen elderly residents died and ten others were evacuated after a fire swept through the El Edén nursing home in Chile’s Araucanía region, officials said. The blaze began late on Friday and was extinguished on Saturday morning, leaving collapsed corrugated metal roofing and debris that firefighters were still clearing.
El Edén is about 640km south of Santiago, roughly 400 miles from the capital. Prosecutor Jorge Granada, who is leading the inquiry, said investigators do not yet know what caused the fire and will focus on establishing its origin and whether there were failures in prevention or oversight.
President José Antonio Kast responded by ordering a review of the condition of nursing homes across the country. Kast said, "We will fully collaborate with the justice system to clarify what happened, determine where failures may have existed in oversight or prevention, identify what alerts were raised and what actions were taken in response to them." He added that authorities must find the truth and fix what is necessary to prevent a similar tragedy.
Local officials described efforts to support relatives of the victims and to secure the scene. Jacqueline Romero, the town mayor, said, "It is a situation that fills our souls with great sorrow and pain. We have been... providing support to the families." Police cordoned off the area for safety while emergency teams continued clearing the site.
Authorities did not provide further details on the identities of the victims or on the condition of those evacuated. Officials said the investigation and clean-up work were ongoing on Saturday, and the prosecutor has framed the probe to determine whether proper safety measures were in place and followed.
The president’s directive immediately pushed the incident into national focus, prompting scrutiny of care homes and the regulatory regime that oversees them. For now, families and local authorities face the twin tasks of recovering remains and cooperating with a judicial inquiry that will seek to determine accountability and any gaps in safety oversight.
